Only when your declaration does not tell you otherwise, and the order of operations matters.

Section 718.113(2)(a) provides that there shall be no material alteration or substantial addition to the common elements or association real property except in the manner provided in the declaration. If the declaration does not specify the procedure, 75 percent of the total voting interests must approve before the work is commenced.

So 75 percent is a gap-filler, not a default that a declaration may lower. If your declaration prescribes a procedure — board-only, majority, two-thirds — that procedure governs. Read the declaration before you count anything.

And note the base: 75 percent of the total voting interests, not of votes cast. Abstentions and non-voters count against you. This is the single most common practical trap.

Two separate rules. For the common elements of a condominium operated by a multicondominium association, the declaration controls; on silence, 75 percent of the total voting interests of each affected condominium. For association real property, the declaration, articles or bylaws control; on silence, 75 percent of the total voting interests of the association.

The statute also expressly preserves declaration provisions requiring approval by owners in other condominiums the association operates, or requiring board approval.

This is where boards get into trouble, and the first thing to know is that the "necessary maintenance" exception is not in the statute. The words do not appear in s. 718.113(2). It is a judicial gloss layered on top.

The structure the courts apply: subsection (1) imposes a mandatory duty to maintain, repair and replace; subsection (2) restricts discretionary improvement. Work genuinely compelled by the maintenance duty is not an "alteration," because the board had no choice about doing it.

The classic test comes from Sterling Village Condominium, Inc. v. Breitenbach, 251 So. 2d 685 (Fla. 4th DCA 1971): to "palpably or perceptively vary or change the form, shape, elements or specifications of a building from its original design or plan, or existing condition, in such a manner as to appreciably affect or influence its function, use, or appearance." Owners had replaced wire porch screening with glass jalousies; the court held that was a material alteration.

Two things practitioners miss. The test is disjunctive — function, use, or appearance — so a purely cosmetic change qualifies. And although Sterling Village involved an owner's alteration, the test applies symmetrically to board action.

Replace it, yes. Replace it with something different, probably not.

Like-for-like replacement at the end of useful life is maintenance. A change in kind, material, color or configuration is an alteration even if the underlying work was necessary — the necessity of doing something does not authorize doing something different. Removing an amenity is an alteration too, even though letting it decay would have been a maintenance failure.

Courts have upheld unvoted board action where work was reasonably necessary to protect the property or owner safety, but that is a narrow lane and it is fact-specific. Get advice before relying on it for anything expensive.

Usually no, and this is the most widely repeated error on the topic.

Section 718.113(5)(a) permits the board to install, or require owners to install, hurricane protection subject to s. 718.3026 and the approval of a majority of the voting interests. What the statute removes is the 75 percent material-alteration threshold — installation in accordance with subsection (5) is expressly not a material alteration. It does not remove the vote. It lowers it from 75 percent to a majority.

There are two exceptions where no vote is required: where the installation, maintenance, repair and replacement of the hurricane protection — or of the exterior windows, doors or other apertures it protects — is the association's responsibility under the declaration; or where owners are required by the declaration to install hurricane protection.

The vote also has formalities. It must be set out in a certificate attesting to the vote and stating the date by which installation must occur, the board must record that certificate in the county public records, and it must send a copy to owners. Failure to record or send does not invalidate the vote.

Yes, and this is mandatory in both chapters.

Condominiums: each board of a residential or mixed-use condominium must adopt hurricane protection specifications for each building, which may include color, style and other factors the board deems relevant, and which must comply with the applicable building code. This applies to all such condominiums regardless of when created.

HOAs: the board or architectural committee must adopt hurricane protection specifications for each structure or improvement on a parcel.

The consequence of having them is that the board can then hold owners to them. The consequence of not having them is that the association has no adopted standard against which to measure conformity — which makes a denial very hard to defend, particularly given the requirement to state a denial with specificity.

The definition is broader than most boards assume: roof systems recognized by the Florida Building Code which meet ASCE 7-22 standards, permanent fixed storm shutters, roll-down track storm shutters, impact-resistant windows and doors, polycarbonate panels, reinforced garage doors, erosion controls, exterior fixed generators, fuel storage tanks, and other hurricane protection products. Generators, fuel tanks and roof systems being inside the definition means roof disputes can fall under the hurricane protection rules.

For condominiums, only if operation is necessary to preserve and protect the condominium property or association property.

Since 2024, an HOA may not enforce or adopt a covenant, rule or guideline that limits or places requirements on the interior of a structure not visible from the parcel's frontage, an adjacent parcel, an adjacent common area, or a community golf course; or that requires review of a central air-conditioning, refrigeration, heating or ventilating system that is not visible under that same test and is substantially similar to a system the association approved or recommended. Note the visibility test is those four vantage points, not "from the street."

Section 720.3045 bars an association from restricting owners or tenants from installing, displaying or storing items not visible from the parcel's frontage, an adjacent parcel, an adjacent common area, or a community golf course — "including, but not limited to, artificial turf, boats, flags, vegetable gardens, clotheslines, and recreational vehicles." Separately, s. 720.3075(3)(e) bars denying entry to a contractor solely because they are not on a preferred vendor list.

Yes, and it is easy to miss because it arrived inside a building-permit bill rather than a community association bill. Effective July 1, 2026, an HOA or its architectural committee may not require a building permit to be issued to a parcel owner as a prerequisite for the association's review of proposed construction. It does not stop the association from requiring the work itself to be permitted, or from conditioning commencement of construction on a permit — it bars only using the permit as a precondition to review.

Separate statutes, and the cites are commonly wrong. Solar sits in s. 163.04 — in Chapter 163, not 718 or 720 — and applies to both condominiums and HOAs. EV charging for condominium owners is s. 718.113(8), and expressly is not a material alteration; we found no Chapter 720 counterpart, so HOA parcel owners have no parallel statutory right. Flags are s. 718.113(4) for condominiums, which permits one US flag with service flags on six named holidays, and s. 720.304(2) for HOAs, which is broader — up to two flags year-round plus a freestanding flagpole up to 20 feet.